GOV.UK Pay

UK government digital payment service providing a REST API for accepting card payments, managing payment links, and processing refunds for government digital services. Built and operated by the Government Digital Service (GDS), GOV.UK Pay enables over 1,500 public sector organisations to take payments securely without managing their own PCI DSS compliance.

GOV.UK Pay publishes 5 APIs on the APIs.io network, including Agreements API, Authorise card payments API, Card payments API, and 2 more. Tagged areas include Payments, Government, UK, Public Sector, and REST.

The GOV.UK Pay catalog on APIs.io includes 2 JSON-LD contexts and 1 Spectral governance ruleset.

GOV.UK Pay’s developer surface includes authentication and 8 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub

36.4/100 thin ▬ flat Agent 49/100 agent native Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-08-21 · rubric v0.12.0

AccessFreeSelf serve⚡ Free to try

5 APIs

Payments Government UK Public Sector REST PCI DSS Refunds Recurring Payments Webhook

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-08-21 · rubric v0.12.0

Composite quality — 36.4/100 · thin

Contract Quality 13.4 / 21

Developer Ergonomics 2.0 / 17

Access Clarity 6.3 / 17

Operational Transparency 1.7 / 11

Contract Governance 1.0 / 10

Discoverability 6.3 / 9

Regulatory Posture 5.2 / 15

Agent readiness — 49/100 · agent native

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10

Documented Reversibility 6 / 6

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10

Idempotency 9 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 8 / 8

Request/Response Examples 7 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 0 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4

Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Payments regime, so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.

The six quality facets above are damped to 85 points between them, because the conditional facet above carries the other 15. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 85% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/gov-uk-pay: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

APIs 5

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

JSON Schema 46

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

Scroll for all 46

Documentation 1

Reference material describing how the API behaves

ContributionGuide

ContributionGuide

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess

AgenticAccess

Build 1

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

CodeOfConduct

CodeOfConduct

Access & Security 3

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

TrustCenter

TrustCenter

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Authentication

Authentication

Operate 2

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

IssueTracker

IssueTracker

Releases

Releases

Commercial 1

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

License

License

Source (apis.yml)

name: GOV.UK Pay
description: UK government digital payment service providing a REST API for accepting card payments, managing payment links,
  and processing refunds for government digital services. Built and operated by the Government Digital Service (GDS), GOV.UK
  Pay enables over 1,500 public sector organisations to take payments securely without managing their own PCI DSS compliance.
accessModel:
  pricing: free
  onboarding: self-serve
  trial: false
  try_now: true
  public: false
  label: Free · Self-serve signup
  confidence: high
  source:
  - plans
  - authentication
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
image: https://www.payments.service.gov.uk/assets/images/govuk-pay-logo.png
tags:
- Payments
- Government
- UK
- Public Sector
- REST
- PCI DSS
- Refunds
- Recurring Payments
- Webhook
tags_raw:
- Payments
- Government
- UK
- Public Sector
- REST
- PCI DSS
- Refunds
- Recurring Payments
- Webhooks
created: '2026-06-13'
modified: '2026-06-13'
url: https://github.com/api-evangelist/gov-uk-pay/blob/main/apis.yml
specificationVersion: '0.23'
apis:
- aid: gov-uk-pay:gov-uk-pay-agreements-api
  name: GOV.UK Pay Agreements API
  description: The Agreements API from GOV.UK Pay — 3 operation(s) for agreements.
  humanURL: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/
  baseURL: https://publicapi.payments.service.gov.uk/
  tags:
  - Agreements
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/gov-uk-pay-agreements-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/
  - type: Authentication
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/api_reference/#authentication
  - type: Webhooks
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/webhooks/
  - type: RateLimits
    url: rate-limits/rate-limits.yml
  - type: Plans
    url: plans/plans.yml
  - type: FinOps
    url: finops/finops.yml
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/alphagov/pay-publicapi
  - type: StatusPage
    url: https://payments.statuspage.io/
  - type: TermsOfService
    url: https://www.payments.service.gov.uk/terms/
  - type: PrivacyPolicy
    url: https://www.payments.service.gov.uk/privacy/
- aid: gov-uk-pay:gov-uk-pay-authorise-card-payments-api
  name: GOV.UK Pay Authorise card payments API
  description: The Authorise card payments API from GOV.UK Pay — 1 operation(s) for authorise card payments.
  humanURL: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/
  baseURL: https://publicapi.payments.service.gov.uk/
  tags:
  - Authorise card payments
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/gov-uk-pay-authorise-card-payments-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/
  - type: Authentication
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/api_reference/#authentication
  - type: Webhooks
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/webhooks/
  - type: RateLimits
    url: rate-limits/rate-limits.yml
  - type: Plans
    url: plans/plans.yml
  - type: FinOps
    url: finops/finops.yml
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/alphagov/pay-publicapi
  - type: StatusPage
    url: https://payments.statuspage.io/
  - type: TermsOfService
    url: https://www.payments.service.gov.uk/terms/
  - type: PrivacyPolicy
    url: https://www.payments.service.gov.uk/privacy/
- aid: gov-uk-pay:gov-uk-pay-card-payments-api
  name: GOV.UK Pay Card payments API
  description: The Card payments API from GOV.UK Pay — 5 operation(s) for card payments.
  humanURL: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/
  baseURL: https://publicapi.payments.service.gov.uk/
  tags:
  - Card Payments
  tags_raw:
  - Card payments
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/gov-uk-pay-card-payments-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/
  - type: Authentication
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/api_reference/#authentication
  - type: Webhooks
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/webhooks/
  - type: RateLimits
    url: rate-limits/rate-limits.yml
  - type: Plans
    url: plans/plans.yml
  - type: FinOps
    url: finops/finops.yml
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/alphagov/pay-publicapi
  - type: StatusPage
    url: https://payments.statuspage.io/
  - type: TermsOfService
    url: https://www.payments.service.gov.uk/terms/
  - type: PrivacyPolicy
    url: https://www.payments.service.gov.uk/privacy/
- aid: gov-uk-pay:gov-uk-pay-disputes-api
  name: GOV.UK Pay Disputes API
  description: The Disputes API from GOV.UK Pay — 1 operation(s) for disputes.
  humanURL: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/
  baseURL: https://publicapi.payments.service.gov.uk/
  tags:
  - Disputes
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/gov-uk-pay-disputes-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/
  - type: Authentication
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/api_reference/#authentication
  - type: Webhooks
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/webhooks/
  - type: RateLimits
    url: rate-limits/rate-limits.yml
  - type: Plans
    url: plans/plans.yml
  - type: FinOps
    url: finops/finops.yml
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/alphagov/pay-publicapi
  - type: StatusPage
    url: https://payments.statuspage.io/
  - type: TermsOfService
    url: https://www.payments.service.gov.uk/terms/
  - type: PrivacyPolicy
    url: https://www.payments.service.gov.uk/privacy/
- aid: gov-uk-pay:gov-uk-pay-refunding-card-payments-api
  name: GOV.UK Pay Refunding card payments API
  description: The Refunding card payments API from GOV.UK Pay — 3 operation(s) for refunding card payments.
  humanURL: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/
  baseURL: https://publicapi.payments.service.gov.uk/
  tags:
  - Refunding card payments
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/gov-uk-pay-refunding-card-payments-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/
  - type: Authentication
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/api_reference/#authentication
  - type: Webhooks
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/webhooks/
  - type: RateLimits
    url: rate-limits/rate-limits.yml
  - type: Plans
    url: plans/plans.yml
  - type: FinOps
    url: finops/finops.yml
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/alphagov/pay-publicapi
  - type: StatusPage
    url: https://payments.statuspage.io/
  - type: TermsOfService
    url: https://www.payments.service.gov.uk/terms/
  - type: PrivacyPolicy
    url: https://www.payments.service.gov.uk/privacy/
maintainers:
- FN: Government Digital Service
  url: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-digital-service
  email: govuk-pay-support@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk
common:
- type: IssueTracker
  url: https://github.com/alphagov/pay-publicapi/issues
- type: Releases
  url: https://github.com/alphagov/pay-publicapi/releases
- type: CodeOfConduct
  url: https://github.com/alphagov/.github/blob/main/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
- type: ContributionGuide
  url: https://github.com/alphagov/pay-publicapi/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md
- type: License
  name: MIT
  url: https://github.com/alphagov/pay-publicapi/blob/master/LICENSE
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/gov-uk-pay-agentic-access.yml
- type: TrustCenter
  url: security/gov-uk-pay-trust-center.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/gov-uk-pay-domain-security.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/gov-uk-pay-authentication.yml

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